A bill that would have offered sentence adjustments for crimes committed when the offender was younger than 18 died in the Wisconsin Senate last week. The measure would have applied to people who received sentences of at least 15 years for offenses that didn’t involve a death and to those sentenced to at least 20 years for crimes that did include a death. It also  would have prohibited a life sentence without parole or extended supervision for youth offenders, and required the consideration of mitigating factors, such as age and maturity, at sentencing. The bill failed to gain traction or a public hearing in the Senate because, according to the lead sponsor, Sen. Jesse James (R-Altoona), there was a lack of clarity about the number of residents in prisons who would be affected. 

At a Feb. 12 event held by the criminal justice reform advocacy group WISDOM near Eau Claire, James told the gathering that information he had originally distributed concerning the number of residents who would be eligible for a sentence adjustment was not accurate, and because of that, he would not call for a public hearing on the bill.

In response to a Wisconsin Examiner request for clarification, a staff person in James’ office said in an email message: “After talking to the Senator to help with more context, I think there was a misinterpretation of what he meant. We received data from DOC (Department of Corrections) that does not necessarily match with data that advocacy groups have been circulating to other members of the Legislature. While we do work with advocacy groups on the bill, we did not provide them their data, so we are not 100% sure where they got it from. The discrepancies between the data our office was giving out versus these advocacy groups caused some confusion about how many individuals this bill would actually help. Given the time frame left in the session with the Assembly being done sooner than the Senate, clearing up the confusion and getting a public hearing in either chamber just did not come to fruition in time.”

Nikki Olson, founder and executive director of the Wisconsin Alliance for Youth Justice (WayJ), represents one of those advocacy groups.

“Sen. James was essentially given a range while WayJ has a specific number,” she said. “Our specific number fits into the range, so I consider his data and ours to be accurate.”

She added, “Sen. James was given two numbers. The number of people who will be impacted. A separate number was given of people that may or may not be impacted. There was data overlap between the two numbers. These two numbers combined means 130ish-300ish people would be impacted. Our number of 253, as of the end of 2024, fits within that range. The range represents a snapshot in time during 2025. Our specific number is a snapshot as of the end of 2024. I would anticipate the change between the two snapshot dates to be minimal and still within the range.”

The Examiner reported in December 2025 on a bill that had been in the works since the 2022-23 session addressing the same focus of youth sentencing. One of the advocacy groups that supported that effort, Kids Forward, estimated the number of residents who could be affected was more than100.

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Small counties in the coastal Southeast had some of the largest population gains between mid-2024 and mid-2025 in estimates being released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau, mostly because of people moving from larger areas.

Jasper County, South Carolina, where there’s a building boom taking advantage of the popularity of nearby Hilton Head, was the fastest-growing county in the nation percentagewise, growing 6% in the year to 38,533 people. It grew even faster the previous year, 6.9%, but another county elsewhere grew slightly faster that year — Mellette County in South Dakota. 

Jasper County has seen movers from New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states, with some new building aimed at retirees and some for workers at expanding factories like TICO, which makes trucks designed for nearby ports, said Eric Larson, the county’s director of development services. One new housing development, Latitude Margaritaville in Hardeeville, is for people 55 and older.

“It’s a real magnet. They’re coming from all over the place and I think they come for the recreation, the low cost of living,” said Larson. “We’re excited to be that hot spot, but it has its challenges. 

“We’re rising to the occasion,” he added, noting that the growth requires more transportation, water and sewer capacity.  

All the 12 counties that grew 4% or more between 2024 and 2025 benefited predominantly from people moving in from other counties. Brunswick County, North Carolina, at the state’s southeastern tip below Wilmington, would have lost population instead of gaining almost 5% if it weren’t for new residents moving in. The influx erased the effects of more deaths than births during the year. 

Most of those fastest-growing counties are at the outer edges of popular metro areas in the Southeast, including Kaufman County, Texas, near Dallas; Jackson County, Georgia, near Athens; and Elbert County, Colorado, near Denver and Colorado Springs. 

However, four of the seven counties with the largest numeric increases had population growth that was largely driven by immigration — including Harris County, Texas, with the highest numeric growth in the nation at 48,695 in one year. Harris County includes Houston.

The other counties with the largest increases driven primarily by immigration include Maricopa County, Arizona (which includes Phoenix, up 35,411); King County, Washington (including Seattle, up 26,980); and Mecklenburg County, North Carolina (Charlotte, up 26,554).

Three other counties in the top seven had increases mostly based on people moving in from elsewhere in the United States: Collin County, Texas (north of Dallas, up 42,966); Montgomery County, Texas (north of Houston, up 30,011); and Wake County, North Carolina (including Raleigh, up 27,760).

Even in counties where immigration was the key driver of population growth, immigration was down from previous years, when immigration streams were swelled by millions of asylum-seekers paroled from the border with Mexico. That flow has largely stopped as the Trump administration stopped accepting asylum-seekers into the country starting last year.

Despite overall population growth, several counties saw a net immigration drop from the previous year. Net immigration dropped 41% in Harris County, Texas, and it was down 48% in  Maricopa County, Arizona. It was down 29% in King County, Washington, and down 41% In Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. No counties of any size saw increased immigration compared with the previous year.

Most counties that grew between 2023 and 2024 saw growth diminish or even turn to a loss between 2024 and 2025, the Census Bureau said in a statement, especially large counties that would normally receive lots of new immigrants.

The largest numeric declines were in Los Angeles County, California, which dropped by 53,934 after gaining 16,300 the previous year; Pinellas County, Florida, which dropped by 11,834, accelerating a smaller decline of 5,346 the previous year and gains earlier in the decade; and Florida’s Miami-Dade County, which lost 10,115 residents after gaining 18,633 the previous year. 

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will sign an order allowing the Department of Homeland Security to pay airport security workers who have gone without a full paycheck since the shutdown began in mid-February. 

The order for Transportation Security Administration workers does not appear to include pay for other federal employees working for DHS, including those at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Secret Service. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Customs and Border Protection have largely been insulated from the DHS shutdown since Republicans approved tens of billions in additional funding for those two agencies in last year’s “big, beautiful” law. 

“It is not an easy thing to do, but I am going to do it! I want to thank our hardworking TSA Agents and also, ICE, for the incredible help they have given us at the Airports,” Trump wrote on social media. “I will not allow the Radical Left Democrats to hold our Country hostage any longer.”

Trump’s decision will give both chambers of Congress, which are controlled by Republicans, a bit of cover to leave for their two-week spring break without actually reaching bipartisan compromise to fund DHS. 

Democrats have held up the department’s funding bill in the Senate to demand new constraints on federal immigration actions after officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minnesota in January. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said shortly after Trump’s announcement that his decision “takes the immediate pressure off” lawmakers to make a deal, but that it’s a “short-term solution.”

Thune said “we’ll see” when asked if negotiations over the DHS funding bill would continue. 

“I’ll have more to say about that here soon,” he said. “But we obviously are going to try and fund as much of the DHS budget as we possibly can.”

Thune hadn’t provided an update as of 10 p.m. Eastern as senators struggled to find a path forward. 

Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said earlier in the evening that talks over funding the department continued with Republicans. 

“There’s an active negotiation going on. I hope they don’t unilaterally decide to walk away. But that’s their decision,” he said. “They ultimately take orders from a higher power.”

Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz said around the same time “it’s just not true that we’re not in a negotiation.”

“It may be that one person or the other has lost patience and that would be too bad,” he said. “But we’re still talking.”

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said Trump made the right decision to choose to pay TSA agents as the shutdown drags on. 

“I just got off the phone with the president,” he said. “The president is doing absolutely the right thing. He’s showing leadership.”

House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., released a statement saying the administration needs to explain to Congress what funding it plans to divert to pay TSA workers and why it didn’t take the step sooner. 

“If the White House believes they have the authority to pay these workers, then every day for the past 41 days, they have been making a conscious decision not to pay them,” she said. “As the lines got longer, as workers called out, as agents quit or got second jobs, they chose again and again not to pay these workers.”

A senior administration official said the administration plans to use money from Republicans’ signature tax and spending package that was enacted last summer. 

Union reaction

American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley said in a statement that while the union is “grateful” that TSA employees will be paid, lawmakers need to find a deal to fully fund the entire department. 

“These workers and their families cannot wait,” she said. “All DHS workers must be paid immediately.

“Congress needs to continue working to pass a real, bipartisan appropriations deal that funds DHS, pays all DHS workers, and keeps these vital agencies running — even if that means canceling their upcoming vacation.”

WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic leaders on Thursday were reading through a new Republican offer to fund the Department of Homeland Security that could end the shutdown that began nearly six weeks ago, with a congressional recess set to begin.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in the afternoon that Democrats hadn’t “responded officially” to a proposal GOP negotiators sent over in the morning but that discussions were ongoing. He described it as the “last and final” offer.

“There are some language requests that they made that we did everything we could to accommodate,” he said. 

Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons said “it’s a good sign that there is paper going back and forth,” though he said the two political parties are still somewhat far apart.

“I think there’s a lot of sense of urgency around getting TSA funded,” he said, referring to the Transportation Security Administration and long wait times at some of the nation’s airports. Some unpaid TSA officers are calling out sick, causing jams in security lines.

“But frankly, we’re not that far from where we’ve been for weeks, which is, Democrats want real reforms to ICE and CBP and are resistant to funding them without reforms, and Republicans would like us to fund them without reforms beyond what Secretary Noem committed to,” Coons said, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agencies.

Some Republican senators, he said, view the confirmation of former Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin earlier this week as a form of compromise on DHS’ immigration enforcement activities. Mullin replaced the former secretary, Kristi Noem.

That, however, isn’t enough for Democrats.

“My Republican friends on this topic have said, ‘Hey, Secretary Mullin in his confirmation committed to A, B, C, D,’” Coons said. “And that’s a far cry from, ‘We’ll put it in statute or we have promulgated this in regulation.’ So that’s some of the problems. I think they feel like they’ve already offered key reforms in Secretary Mullin’s confirmation. And at least the senators that I’ve talked to don’t think that’s enough.”

Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner said there is “a conundrum” over how to provide more funding for Customs and Border Protection “without some agreement that they need to go back to their statutory role, not doing interior enforcement.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., had not commented publicly on the latest Republican offer as of late afternoon. 

Trump vows ‘very drastic measures’

President Donald Trump said during a morning Cabinet meeting at the White House that he wants to see a deal to fund DHS soon, but didn’t disclose any details of the latest offer.  

“They need to end the shutdown immediately, or we’ll have to take some very drastic measures,” he said, opting not to elaborate on what he meant. 

Thune said he’d leave the White House to speak for Trump on whether he supports the latest Republican DHS funding offer but added that administration staff have “been involved in the back-and-forth that has occurred overnight and all morning.”

“It’s never done until it’s done,” he said. 

Timing on a deal to fund DHS is somewhat important, with the House scheduled to depart Friday for a two-week spring break that their Senate colleagues are supposed to leave for as well. 

Thune said the chamber will likely head off for the recess if they fund DHS, but suspects “we’ll probably be around here” if they don’t.  

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., didn’t commit to put a reworked DHS appropriations bill on the House floor, especially if it doesn’t include funding for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations.

“We have never been in favor of breaking the bill up,” he said. 

But Johnson said it may be possible for Republicans to move funding for that specific program through the complex budget reconciliation process, which the party used last year to approve tens of billions in additional funding for immigration enforcement and deportation in its “big, beautiful” law.  

“If they break away that subset, I suppose we’d have to fund it through reconciliation and find some other means,” he said. 

Working without pay

Workers at the several agencies within DHS, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Secret Service, will continue to work without pay until Congress brokers some sort of funding deal for the department.

Any federal employee who handles national security issues or the protection of life or property keeps working during a shutdown. All others are supposed to be sent home. Everyone is supposed to get back pay once the shutdown ends. 

TSA airport security screeners this weekend will miss their second full paycheck since the funding lapse began, after seeing only a partial paycheck early in the shutdown.

While TSA workers are required to work without pay during a shutdown, thousands have called in sick over the last six weeks as they seek gig work and other ways to pay bills. Call-out rates nationwide reached double digits this week, with some airports seeing more than 40% of employees miss shifts.

Some TSA workers have turned to selling plasma to make ends meet, officials from the union representing the agency’s employees told reporters Tuesday.

The staffing shortages have led to hours-long waits at security lines in some highly trafficked airports, causing passengers to miss flights and generally adding to the anxiety of air travel.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the administration “is having discussions about a number of ideas to blunt the impact of the Democrat shutdown crisis, but no preparations or plans are currently underway. The best and easiest way to pay TSA Agents is to fund DHS.” 

Jacob Fischler contributed to this report. 

WASHINGTON — Mikayla Pivec said she worked more than 50 hours per week as a women’s college basketball player, but earned less than $8 an hour from a $1,600 monthly stipend.

The professional basketball player and former star at Oregon State University said she was testifying at Thursday’s U.S. Senate panel hearing on reshaping college athletics because “the NCAA has failed and continues to fail to protect and respect college athletes.” 

Pivec, who worked for a food delivery service and “collected cans” to make ends meet in college, played for Oregon State prior to the NCAA’s 2021 guidelines that allowed student-athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness, or NIL.

“NIL has helped some players, but most still earn less than $10 an hour and struggle to pay for basic necessities,” she told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. 

Pivec said “the lack of protections goes way beyond money,” noting that she had a foot injury that needed surgery and was denied an MRI “every single time” she requested one.

She is the co-founder and organizing director of the United College Athletes Association, a players’ association that aims to ensure college athletes are protected, educated and fairly compensated. 

Another ‘unfair system’

The college sports landscape continues to grapple with gender inequity in NIL deals, a patchwork of state NIL laws, booster collectives and the NCAA’s controversial transfer portal, among other issues. 

Just last year, a federal judge approved the terms of a nearly $2.8 billion antitrust settlement that paved the way for schools to directly pay athletes.

At a White House roundtable this month, President Donald Trump vowed to imminently deliver an executive order aimed at reshaping college sports. 

“The current landscape is just replacing one unfair system for another,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, chair of the Senate HELP Committee.

“Short-term financial gain with NIL deals is overshadowing the value of an education and the value of Olympic and women’s sports,” the Louisiana Republican said. 

Employees?

The fierce debate over whether college athletes should be considered employees took center stage Thursday, drawing mixed attitudes from senators, experts, leaders and athletes. 

“I think the political dynamic is that Republicans and Democrats aren’t that far off from what we agree on — it’s just this one small issue that gets in the way from us passing something related to unionization and how we treat students-athletes, whether we treat them as employees or not,” said Sen. Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican. 

A bipartisan bill on pause in the U.S. House looks to create a national framework for college athletes’ compensation and would prohibit college athletes from being classified as employees. 

The measure would also give broad antitrust immunity to the NCAA and college sports conferences.

Sen. Chris Murphy, who has advocated for collective bargaining, said he does not want Congress “in the business of micromanaging college athletics and how compensation works.”

“That just doesn’t feel like our role,” the Connecticut Democrat said, while blasting the bipartisan bill as an “effort to put the big schools back in a position where they can collude and wage-suppress.” 

Trayvean Scott, vice president of Intercollegiate Athletics at Grambling State University in Louisiana, pointed to a “strain” that athletic departments, and under-resourced institutions in particular, would begin to face as a consequence of student-athletes becoming employees.

“When you look at that, my belief is that roster spots will start to be reduced, specifically to those non-revenue sports, specifically on the men’s side,” he said. “For an institution at Grambling State University, where we have 15 Division I sports, that means baseball is probably going to go first.”

In a unanimous decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that police officers must read K-12 students their Miranda rights before interrogating them in a school setting. 

The case stems from an incident at a Two Rivers middle school in which a 12-year-old seventh grade student, referred to in the case under the pseudonym Kevin, touched the groin of a classmate. Kevin was pulled out of class to be interviewed in a small room dedicated for use by school resource officers. After an initial interview around 10 minutes, Kevin was allowed to leave before being interviewed again about an hour later by the officers and a vice principal. The boy was not able to call his parents and was not informed he was allowed to leave the room. 

While he was in the room, a uniformed officer stood in front of the door and the school resource officer doing the interview lied by saying there were witnesses to the incident. Police officers are allowed to lie during interviews to elicit a confession. 

Kevin said during both interviews that he had touched the boy’s groin but that it was an accident. 

Kevin was later charged with fourth-degree sexual assault and in a bench trial was found delinquent by a Manitowoc County Circuit Court judge. 

The boy appealed the ruling, arguing that the statements he made during the interview were inadmissible because he had not been read his Miranda rights. 

In the majority decision, authored by Justice Janet Protasiewicz and joined by the Court’s three other liberal-leaning justices, the Court found that taking Kevin to the room for questioning amounted to being in police custody and he should have been read his rights. 

The ruling found that the interview statements weren’t admissible. However it also found that the evidence for the delinquency finding did not rely on the statements so the circuit judge’s decision was upheld. 

“While Kevin sat across from one officer who questioned him, another fully uniformed and armed officer stood positioned in front of the door. The questioning officer asked him about an alleged sexual assault. She told him — untruthfully — that there were witnesses,” Protasiewicz wrote. “She also accusingly told him ‘it happened.’ No one told him he could reach out to his parents or any other adult. No one told him he was free to leave. No one told him he did not need to answer questions.” 

“But in the end, a 12-year-old boy was questioned in a closet-like law-enforcement office with two police officers, one who was fully uniformed and standing in front of the door,” she continued. 

Ryan Cox, the legal director of the ACLU of Wisconsin, which filed an amicus brief in the case, said the ruling would protect the constitutional rights of children.

“The Supreme Court’s decision is a major victory for the due process rights of Wisconsin students,” Cox said in a statement to the Wisconsin Examiner. “The ruling means that, in deciding whether a student must be read their Miranda rights during a police interrogation in a school setting, Wisconsin courts must consider the reasons why a child in the student’s position would feel coerced and not free to leave. This decision upholds students’ Fifth Amendment right to protect themselves against self-incrimination during encounters with law enforcement. Students retain their constitutional rights, including the right to remain silent and seek counsel when interacting with law enforcement, even in the school environment. Police are not exempt from their responsibilities to uphold the rights of a person simply because the student is a minor in a school environment. The Court affirmed this fundamental principle and protected Wisconsin students across the state from coercive and unconstitutional police conduct.”

In a concurring opinion joined by the other two conservative leaning justices, Justice Brian Hagedorn said the issue was made larger than it should have been, writing that the majority transformed “a rather ordinary schoolhouse questioning” into a matter of constitutional import. 

Hagedorn wrote that a seventh grader would likely see being questioned by police as intimidating but recognize that school resource officers are trusted parts of the school community. 

“Would a reasonable 12-year-old in this situation feel some pressure? Absolutely. But was this the kind of hostile, inherently coercive questioning that animated the court in Miranda? It was not,” Hagedorn wrote. “A reasonable person in Kevin’s position would not see SROs as unfamiliar and antagonistic adults. The reasonable person would see them as dedicated and familiar faces — intimidating to be sure — but nonetheless present to keep everyone safe.” 

Communities across Wisconsin have had fights over the presence of school resource officers for years. Officers were removed from Milwaukee Public Schools in 2016 at the request of community members, but returned last year by state legislators under a provision of a law providing local governments with increased state financial support. Opponents of SROs have argued the presence of cops in schools makes Black students in particular targets of inappropriate monitoring at school, which is supposed to be a safe place for them to learn. 

In his opinion, Hagedorn wrote that the ruling was a close call but that he wanted to distinguish between a true police interrogation and the normal functions of school discipline. 

“These facts give some support to the idea that a reasonable person in Kevin’s situation would have felt pressured to confess,” Hagedorn wrote. “Under my read of the cases, however, more is required to approximate the coercive environment at issue in Miranda. Someone in Kevin’s shoes would certainly feel the weight of adult condemnation. His conscience might even call him to come clean in the face of a serious infraction. But this normal human experience should not so quickly be placed on par with the uniquely coercive station house questioning to which Miranda applies.”

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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump, who wants to ban mail-in voting, said he had the right to vote by mail-in ballot in Florida’s special election Tuesday “because I’m president of the United States.”

The president’s statement at his Cabinet meeting Thursday comes as he aggressively pushes U.S. Senate Republicans to break the long-standing filibuster to pass a restrictive voting bill ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. 

The legislation, which would require a birth certificate and other documentation for voter registration, also would federally prohibit universal voting by mail without special approval, according to the Brennan Center and other sources.

“Because I’m president of the United States, and because of the fact that I’m president of the United States, I did a mail-in ballot for elections that took place in Florida because I felt I should be here instead of being in the beautiful sunshine,” Trump told reporters at the White House. 

“We have exceptions for mail in ballots. You do know that, right?” he said to the reporter who asked about his mail-in ballot. “So if you’re away, we have an exception. If you’re in the military, we have an exception. If you’re on a business trip, we have an exception. If you’re disabled, we have an exception. And if you’re ill, if you’re not feeling good. So I was away mostly in Washington, D.C., so I used a mail-in ballot.”

The president regularly travels on Air Force One between the nation’s capital and Florida, including taking a trip to his Palm Beach home this past weekend.

The White House declined to comment on whether someone other than the president requested, picked up and dropped off or mailed the president’s mail-in ballot. 

Florida election law states that only a person’s immediate family member or legal guardian can do so.

“As President Trump has said, the SAVE America Act has commonsense exceptions for Americans to use mail-in ballots for illness, disability, military, or travel — but universal mail-in voting should not be allowed because it’s highly susceptible to fraud. As everyone knows, the President is a resident of Palm Beach and participates in Florida elections, but he obviously primarily lives at the White House in Washington, D.C. This is a non-story,” White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said in a written statement.

Trump’s statement also was made three days after conservative Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical that federal law allows states to accept mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day but not received until after polls close, during a five-day grace period. While the case was out of Mississippi, 14 states — both red and blue — have similar laws.

2020 election refrain

Discrediting mail-in voting has been a common refrain of Trump’s since the 2020 presidential election, which he lost but still falsely claims he won.

Roughly 30% of voters cast mail-in ballots in the 2024 election, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

Eight states and Washington, D.C., allow all elections to be conducted entirely by mail, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. They are: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington state.

Nebraska and North Dakota permit counties to opt into conducting elections via mail.

Idaho, Minnesota, New Jersey and New Mexico allow mostly mail elections for certain small jurisdictions. A handful of other states permit mail voting for local elections.

SAVE America Act and filibuster

Writing on his social media platform Thursday morning, Trump said: “When is ‘enough, enough’ for our Republican Senators. There comes a time when you must do what should have been done a long time ago, and something which the Lunatic Democrats will do on day one, if they ever get the chance. TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER, and get our airports, and everything else, moving again. Also, add the complete, all five items, SAVE AMERICA ACT items. Go for the Gold!!! President DJT”

Trump complicated negotiations Monday when he said at an event in Memphis, Tennessee, that he would not approve a deal to end the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, ongoing since mid-February, unless senators could find a way to also pass his voting bill, dubbed the SAVE America Act.

The filibuster requires nearly all legislation to receive 60 votes to advance to passage in the Senate. With all Democrats against the legislation, the bill would not garner enough support in the upper chamber, which is split 53-47.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate was unable to agree Thursday whether to require photo identification to vote in federal elections, as the chamber debated a larger bill that would make several changes to how Americans register and cast ballots. 

The 53-47 procedural vote rejected an amendment from Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted to the SAVE America Act, which President Donald Trump and some GOP lawmakers believe is an essential piece of legislation, but Democrats say will make it more difficult for Americans to vote. 

The bill already included a section that is very similar to the amendment, but the vote gave Republicans the opportunity to put Democrats on the record about whether they supported voter ID to cast a ballot. 

California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla urged lawmakers to oppose the amendment, saying the vote was an indication of “showmanship and theatrics” from Republicans.

Padilla said the effort would have prevented people from using student IDs or tribal IDs that don’t have an expiration date from participating “in our democracy even though you are eligible.”

The photo ID requirement to cast a ballot, he said, would also add an “additional and unnecessary obstacle” to the tens of millions of Americans who vote by mail. 

“In the 2024 election, 48 million voters chose to vote by mail,” he said. “And in case you missed the breaking news a couple days ago, President Trump once again voted by mail in the special election in Florida. So what is it, good enough for the president but not good enough for the rest of us? Secure enough for the president but not secure enough for the American people?”

Republicans defend photo ID

Husted said during floor debate on the proposal that his amendment is “clean, simple, straightforward.”

“States across our country have shown that you can simultaneously make it easy to vote and hard to cheat,” he said. “Georgia, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, all along with my home state of Ohio, all have photo ID requirements, just to name a few.”

Husted said it’s “common sense” for Americans to prove who they are when they vote. 

“Americans are required to show a photo ID when they rent a car, when they start a job, when they board a plane. This is something that people do every single day,” he said. 

New rules for mail-in ballots

The amendment would have required anyone voting in person to provide election workers with a valid photo identification, which would include a driver’s license, state-issued identification card, U.S. passport, military ID card issued by either the Defense Department or the Department of Veterans Affairs, or a tribal identification card that has an expiration date. 

Americans submitting a mail-in ballot would need to send a copy of their photo identification. If for some reason a voter was unable to do that, they could submit the last four digits of their Social Security number along with an affidavit that they couldn’t provide a copy of their ID.

The provision would have requested state or local election officials “to the extent practicable” ensure people have access to a digital scanner and printer to copy their photo IDs for their mail-in ballots. 

State election officials would have been required to notify people of the new photo ID requirement to cast a ballot when they registered to vote. 

The bill itself, which holds several other provisions, has no chance of advancing in the Senate amid Democratic opposition. Major legislation cannot move forward without the support of at least 60 senators, a procedural step known as the legislative filibuster. 

Republicans earlier this week floated the possibility of moving pieces of the package through the complicated budget reconciliation process, though several GOP senators conceded it will be difficult to move a policy proposal through a pathway designed for changes to federal tax, spending and debt limit issues. 

A bipartisan pair of U.S. senators from the Midwest on Thursday asked the Commerce Department to investigate major agricultural machinery manufacturers, saying they paid shareholders handsomely while offshoring jobs.

Sens. Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat, and Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican, asked Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to open an investigation under a law that allows tariffs to be used for national security purposes.

John Deere, Caterpillar and the Wisconsin-based Case New Holland had all laid off U.S. workers in recent years while moving manufacturing jobs to Mexico. The moves hollowed out Midwest industrial towns but made the companies enormous profits, Baldwin and Moreno wrote. 

“These companies should not be allowed to eliminate American jobs, pay Mexican workers poverty wages, and then ship products back to the U.S. for additional profit on the backs of our communities,” they wrote. “They argue that offshoring is necessary to remain competitive, but when it comes time to pay executives or shareholders, they are never short of money.”

The companies have all delivered generous payments to shareholders in recent years, the senators said. John Deere has paid $8.4 billion, CNH has paid $1.7 billion and Caterpillar has paid $18.2 billion through dividends and stock buybacks, they wrote.

But payouts for investors came at the expense of their blue-collar workforce, Baldwin and Moreno wrote.

CNH laid off 220 workers from its Racine, Wisconsin, facility in 2024 and moved production to Mexico. All of the roughly 200 CNH workers in a Burlington, Iowa, facility are set to lose their jobs after the company announced in January it would close the plant. And John Deere laid off more than 3,600 union employees after moving production from Iowa to Mexico, the senators said.

Representatives for the companies did not immediately return messages seeking comment Thursday. 

Section 232

The lawmakers asked Lutnick to open an investigation that could result in so-called Section 232 tariffs to deter the companies from moving production to Mexico. 

“These companies and their executives should not be rewarded for destroying American jobs or permitted to import their products without facing a penalty,” they wrote.

The tariffs, named for the section of the 1962 law that created them, permits the administration to levy tariffs for national security purposes. Though created in 1962, no administration used them until President Donald Trump’s first term, when he imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum.

The administration now “has a unique opportunity,” the senators said, to prevent heavy equipment manufacturers from moving more jobs out of the country.

However, they added that any Section 232 investigation would be limited by a free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico that Trump approved in his first term. They called for the administration to “address … issues” created by the agreement, known as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.

The agreement “has incentivized major heavy equipment manufacturers to locate production in Mexico,” they wrote. “Any efforts that the Administration takes solely on Section 232 will be weakened by the shortcomings that currently exist in USMCA.”

Spokespeople for the Commerce Department and White House did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

MAGA appeal

The senators’ letter appeals to key parts of Trump’s political coalition. 

Throughout his decade in politics, he has focused messaging on protecting farming and reviving domestic manufacturing industries. 

In both his victorious presidential elections, the Republican won unusually large slices of union workers in swing states with legacy manufacturing industries while running up a major advantage with rural voters.

Trump has aggressively — and controversially — employed tariffs to encourage domestic production.

He is scheduled to host nearly 1,000 farmers at the White House on Friday. 

This report is republished by agreement with the Racine County Eye, where it originally appeared.

Democratic State Reps Angelina Cruz of Racine and Christian Phelps of Eau Claire are proposing a new plan aimed at lowering property taxes while increasing funding for public schools by using a portion of the state’s budget surplus.

Cruz hosted a media roundtable in Racine Wednesday, March 25, alongside State Rep. Greta Neubauer (D-Racine), during which they talked about the plan with the superintendents, school board presidents, and parents from Racine and Kenosha Unified School Districts.

The proposal comes as Wisconsin is set to have a $2.5 billion surplus in its 2025–27 biennial budget, according to lawmakers. Cruz and Phelps’ bill would allocate about $1.3 billion of that surplus toward education.

Both the Assembly and the Senate have held their last regular floor sessions for the 2025-26 term, so the proposal is unlikely to get a vote this year.

According to a statement released by Cruz on March 20, the proposal would increase general school aid and raise the state’s reimbursement rate for special education costs. The goal is to reduce the financial burden on local property taxpayers while improving stability for school districts.

“The proposal would use a portion of the state’s surplus to increase general school aid and raise the state reimbursement rate for special education costs, helping ease pressure on local property taxpayers and providing greater financial stability for school districts,” the release states.

Under the plan, general school aid would increase by $445,949,400 for the 2026–27 school year. By shifting more responsibility to the state, the bill would reduce reliance on local property taxes, which have been rising as districts struggle to cover costs.

Kenosha Unified Superintendent Jeff Weiss noted that property taxpayers have already seen increases of up to 29% on their tax bills.

A key component of the proposal focuses on special education funding.

Cruz and Phelps recommend raising the reimbursement rate to 60% for both the current and upcoming school years, with funding guaranteed to cover that percentage.

“While this still falls short of the level of support many districts need, increasing reimbursement to 60% would provide critical relief for public schools,” Cruz said. “It would help stabilize school district budgets and reduce the need for operating referendums in communities across Wisconsin.”

School officials say education funding needed

Currently, many districts rely heavily on referendums to maintain staffing, programs and daily operations because of limited state support.

Racine Unified Superintendent Soren Gajewski emphasized the strain this has placed on communities.

“Once again, this community and Racine have stepped up to the plate and done everything they can to support their public schools,” Gajewski said. “But the problem is, we continue to have the cost of education and the revenue limits because the revenue coming in does not match, or isn’t even close.”

Gajewski also pointed to rising costs driven by inflation and contracts for services such as food, transportation, and electricity. About 18% of students in Racine Unified receive special education services, further adding to budget pressures.

In a public letter, Gajewski joined superintendents from Madison, Milwaukee, Kenosha and Green Bay in calling for increased state support. They specifically requested raising the special education reimbursement rate to 45% instead of the current 35%, along with additional general funding.

The issue of special education funding has been especially contentious. The state’s reimbursement rate was lowered this school year, according to the Department of Public Instruction, a change that Cruz’s and Phelps’ bill would reverse.

Kenosha Unified Board of Education President Mary Modder criticized the current system.

“With special education, we have people out in the public who are saying, ‘Well, you guys got a huge increase in special education’ without realizing that we really didn’t,” Modder said. “It’s kind of a bait and switch, and then we have to make up the difference.”

Local leaders say the lack of consistent state funding has forced districts to make difficult financial decisions.

Racine Mayor Cory Mason expressed frustration with what he sees as the state shifting responsibility onto local taxpayers.

“Year after year, we see the state walking away from its responsibility to adequately fund education and putting more and more of it on local property taxpayers,” Mason said. “There’s no future where we’re successful without great public schools.”

Cruz said the proposal is intended to address what she described as years of underinvestment in public education.

“We have been living with the consequences of long-term disinvestment in our public schools,” she said. “This legislation is a step toward correcting that. By increasing the state’s investment in public education, we can support our schools while delivering meaningful relief to property taxpayers.”

This report includes additional information from the Wisconsin Examiner. 

Reports republished from the Racine County Eye are not available for republishing elsewhere.

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From 2021 to 2024, a new report reveals there was a dramatic increase in the number of incarcerated residents of Wisconsin’s jails and prisons accessing medications for opioid use disorder.

“Treatment Behind Bars: Medication for Opioid Use Disorder in Wisconsin’s Jails and Prisons” by the Wisconsin Policy Forum was released Wednesday at a press conference hosted by Vital Strategies Overdose Prevention Program, a global public health organization that has been working since 2018 to use “advanced evidence-based strategies on overdose prevention and to expand access to harm reduction and treatment, particularly for populations at highest risk,” said Giavana Margo, program manager.

The report notes that “medications for opioid use disorder are an important tool to help people manage symptoms of opioid withdrawal, as well as recover from symptoms of active opioid addiction. Research also shows that individuals who are newly released from prison are at elevated risk for overdose fatalities.”

The report said there are three factors that have “likely” resulted in the higher use of opioid use disorder medications  in carceral settings:

1. The high number of opioid deaths in the state that reached a peak in 2024
2. The availability of opioid lawsuit settlement dollars from pharmaceutical companies to address treatment.
3. Federal and professional agencies promoting the medications, and pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice to offer them to carceral residents under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

A fourth factor discussed during the press conference is the higher percentage of jail and prison facilities offering the medications, encouraging wider acceptability.

Jason Stein, president of the Wisconsin Policy Forum, said that even though the number of opioid deaths has dropped noticeably since 2024, the number of overdose deaths statewide is slightly higher than vehicle deaths, making overdoses a “significant public policy issue.”

He noted that of 71 jails in the state, 58 filled out a 42-question survey fully and seven answered partially, resulting in a 97% reporting rate for the jails, while the Department of Corrections (DOC) reported data via its central pharmacy that serves all the state prisons.

The primary two opioid use disorder medications used by facilities are methadone and buprenorphine.

“Both of those medications are associated with a decrease in overdose deaths as well as improvements in other important indicators such as recidivism,” he said.

The study also looked at the use of naltrexone, another medication that is not strictly for opioid use disorder, and it also looked at the prevalence of naloxone or Narcan, which is used to reverse opioid overdoses.

The report notes that only four residents in the DOC system took buprenorphine in 2021, but 148 were receiving it in 2024, and 44 took naltrexone in 2001 — a number  that increased to 154 in 2024.

Stein said a 2021 Department of Health Services (DHS) report showed that only one-third of prisons offered any medication for opioid addiction, but by 2025 all 36 prisons were offering at least one medication.

Currently, Stein said, most Wisconsin jails — 53 of 65 that responded or 81.5% — offer one form of opioid medication. That is more than double the 25 jails, or 41%, that reported at least one medication in 2021.

“It’s more common for jails in the central and southeastern parts of our state to have multiple forms available,” he said of opioid medication. “In northern Wisconsin, it’s typically one form … such as buprenorphine.”

The report notes that offering the medications to those in jails and prisons results in a reduction of overdose deaths after release, as well as a decreased risk of death for any cause and a lower risk of reincarceration.

“We want to note that there is increased availability of these medications in both county jails and prisons around the state, making it available to thousands of individuals in 2024 at a substantial increase from 2021, but at the same time, there are some gaps, meaning access at the county level,” Stein said. “We had eight counties that stated they did not currently provide any access to these medications. We had five more counties that did not answer the survey. There are now 24 counties that provide some access to methadone, but that is still a minority, and we have a number of jails that, while they may provide continuation of existing prescriptions, they do not initiate individuals on those medications.”

He added, “We do see some opportunity … despite the challenges that may exist, to increase access; we do see some tools that local counties can turn to. One, there are more counties and private providers that are offering this service around the state, so there’s the potential for partnership, and then, as well, the availability of opioid settlement funds also makes the possibility of funding this service more practical in some cases for counties.”

Joanna Hernandez of Milwaukee shared her experience of struggling with addiction while incarcerated and the importance of continuing medication.

She recounted being arrested in 2013 in Walworth County while possessing a valid prescription for Suboxone (a medication to treat opioid addiction).

“The jail verified my prescription, but even after confirming it, they refused to give me my medication,” she said. “I was there for five days and went through very severe withdrawal. I was extremely sick and eventually segregated to a single cell. I remember guards telling me, ‘You know, this isn’t a hospital.’ As soon as I was able to post bail and get out, I used immediately. If I had been able to continue my prescription while incarcerated, I could have focused on healing and making sure my mental health medications were the right fit for me. Mental health plays a huge role in withdrawal.”

She added, “Experiences like mine show why access to medications for opiate use disorder is so important. Withdrawal in jail does not treat addiction. It actually increases the risk of relapse and overdose when people are released. Jails and correctional facilities need to treat opiate use disorder like the medical condition it is. Access to medications for opiate use disorder is about dignity, medical care and saving lives.”

Kenosha County Sheriff David Zoerner said an important part of his jail’s intake is an initial screening, so the residents get the resources they need and they also have those resources when they leave.

He noted it was a grant that provided the dollars to do the initial screening, and also stressed the limiting factor on how much his office can do is money, mostly from tax levies.

Zoerner said the most efficient way to offer methadone would be at the jail but he fears methadone could be “diverted nefariously,” so instead those who need it are driven daily to a facility, but that is also costly because it requires a deputy to transport the residents.

“My hope, based on what we’re doing right now with the early screens, is being able to work with the affected population while they’re in our custody, getting them peer support and some need therapy,” he said.  “You understand that drug addiction, behavioral health issues, mental health, they all go hand in hand, so to facilitate that through and then with new legislation, hopefully we’re going to be able to get these folks prescriptions, a 30-day supply, before they leave.”

The new legislation Sheriff Zoerner referred to is AB 604, which passed the Legislature and is waiting for Gov. Tony Evers’ signature. It would allow the state to apply for Medicaid coverage for incarcerated people, including a 30-day supply of opioid medication prior to release.

At the press conference, Adriena Hust, state team leader of Vital Strategies, shared recommendations for expanding opioid use disorder medication access in Wisconsin jails and prisons.

“The first recommendation, incarceration is not treatment,” she said.  “More should be done to avoid reincarceration. Most admissions to prison in Wisconsin are due to supervision and technical violations, rather than a new crime. While reforms are in progress, Vital Strategies recommends that Wisconsin continue to minimize revocation and eliminate incarceration sanctions for drug use while on supervision, considering reoccurring drug use is a common part of substance use treatment. Although today’s study did not deal with the issue of revocations, we know they are costly, and the savings to minimize them can go toward medication and staffing.”

Another recommendation is to make methadone and buprenorphine standard treatments for opioid use disorder.

And she said counseling should be optional and not a condition to receive medication because it is the medication that saves lives.

 “As mentioned, people are at extreme risk of dying by overdose in the first few weeks after leaving carceral settings,” she said. “It is important that re-entry planning focus on seamless continuation of medication in the community, which greatly reduces this mortality risk.”

And she noted that those incarcerated who have a right to medication under the Americans with Disabilities Act should have “recourse against violations without fear of retaliation,” in demanding medication. Lastly, she said, the state and counties should prioritize opioid settlement dollars for “opioid use disorders in jails and prisons.”

Wisconsin is not that MAGA. That’s one top-line takeaway from the latest Marquette University Law School poll, released this week, which shows 56% of Wisconsin voters disapprove of the job President Donald Trump is doing — his worst approval rating so far during his two terms in office. Violent immigration raids, a dangerous and ill-conceived war in the Middle East, high gas prices, ruinous trade wars, devastating health care cuts and economic uncertainty are clearly eating away Wisconsin voters’ enthusiasm for Trump, whom they elected by a narrow margin in 2024. That’s not great news for fervent Trump ally U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who won Trump’s endorsement in his campaign for governor.

It might also have something to do with the exodus of Republican leaders from the Legislature, with both Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu announcing their retirements, along with a growing crowd of other departing Republicans, some of whom represent newly competitive districts. 

Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Devin Remiker has been gleefully proclaiming that all those Republican retirements foreshadow a Democratic sweep of state races in November.

But while Tiffany will almost certainly be the Republican candidate for governor, on the Democratic side, we don’t know who will emerge from a seven-way primary race.

Which Democrat has the best shot at beating Tiffany was the main question on the minds of a handful of Democrats who gathered at a coffee shop in downtown Madison Tuesday evening to listen to a pitch from Joel Brennan, Gov. Tony Evers’ affable former secretary of the Department of Administration. Brennan, the only white, male candidate in the Democratic field, seems like the safe bet to many of the people who came out to hear him — more “electable” than the rest of the field of progressive women and people of color, as several attendees sheepishly told me. That assessment is entirely subjective at this point. The leading Democrat in the last three Marquette polls is Madison-based state Rep. Francesca Hong, a socialist, who is the top choice of 14% of Democratic primary voters, followed by former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes at 11%. All the other candidates are in the single digits, including Brennan, who only pulls down 2%. A large majority of voters — 65% — say they have not yet decided on a candidate. 

There’s no simple formula for “electability” in Wisconsin, a state where a majority of voters helped elect former President Barack Obama twice, then twice chose Trump. Wisconsinites also enthusiastically embraced Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary, when he won 69 of 72 counties. U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin has proven it’s possible for a progressive lesbian from Madison to win in conservative, rural areas of the state, by listening and working hard on the issues that matter to her constituents. A successful, independent populist campaign by a candidate who is not a centrist or an establishment type is definitely possible in Wisconsin.

But it’s easy to see Brennan appealing to a broad cross-section of voters in the state. He seems like a decent guy with a folksy, well-meaning aura not unlike two-term Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. Like Evers, he talks a lot about reaching across the aisle and getting things done for the people of Wisconsin, regardless of the national political circus. He also warns that Democrats in the Legislature have been out of power so long they haven’t used the “muscles” one needs to engage in the work of compromise and deal-making that will inevitably be necessary to govern a closely divided state.

Under Wisconsin’s new, fair voting maps, Republicans can no longer act like they are the undisputed rulers of a one-party state. But Democrats, even if they win majorities in both houses of the Legislature, are likely going to have to manage narrow margins and make some efforts at bipartisanship. It’s also possible that we will continue to have a divided government. 

Many Democrats have been disappointed in the compromises Evers made with legislative Republicans. Maybe he could have driven a harder bargain on budget deals that allowed the state surplus to balloon while schools were starved of resources and property taxpayers picked up more and more of the tab. Maybe we could have done more to expand health care than the belated, one-year postpartum Medicaid deal that allowed us to finally get in line with 48 other states. Maybe we could have adequately funded our state’s SNAP program and avoided ruinous federal penalties for high error rates without tying that money to a ban on candy and soda that stigmatizes poor people and micromanages small pleasures but doesn’t actually improve people’s health.

On the other hand, dealing with the obstructionist, power-grabbing Republican majority was a thorny problem Evers dealt with essentially by himself. His most significant contribution is probably the passage of new, fair maps, which are suddenly changing that dynamic. Republicans are showing signs of dropping their obstructionist habits as they face newly competitive elections even as their national leader’s popularity craters. But even on fair maps, legislative Democrats didn’t close ranks behind Evers. After the state Supreme Court forced Republicans to abandon their gerrymander, their willingness to vote for the maps Evers endorsed made many legislative Democrats suspicious. Most of them didn’t vote for the new un-gerrymandered reality.

If Democrats win, that new reality will involve a new kind of struggle for both parties — moving from fighting tooth and nail with the other side to trying to move the state forward.

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Gas prices are climbing again across the United States — with little clarity on where prices are headed next — spurring proposals for state gas tax holidays in the hopes of offering drivers some relief.

The national average hit $3.96 per gallon Monday, up from $3.72 the week before, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. A month ago, the average price per gallon was $2.79.

Some analysts warn prices could continue climbing in the coming weeks, potentially pushing the national average above $4 per gallon for the first time since 2022.

Data from AAA, a national travel and motorist organization, shows a similar upward trend for both regular gas and diesel.

While the Energy Information Administration no longer publishes detailed data for every state, regional figures show increases across much of the country. The West Coast, Central Atlantic states and Rocky Mountain region are seeing some of the highest average prices, with California, Colorado and Washington among those experiencing the largest recent increases.

Rising gas prices are putting renewed pressure on household finances, especially for low- and middle-income Americans who have less flexibility to absorb higher transportation costs. The increases can ripple through daily life, influencing how much people drive, where they travel and how they spend money elsewhere.

Still, economists say the most significant factor right now is not just the price itself, but the uncertainty surrounding it. With national policy decisions and geopolitical developments in the Middle East shifting rapidly, there is little consensus on how long prices will remain elevated or how high they could climb.

“Gasoline prices don’t live in isolation,” said Steven Durlauf, an economist at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. Durlauf also is the director of the university’s Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility. “Reductions in the supply of petroleum, oil-based products affect the entire economy.”

States weigh gas tax holidays

With prices rising, local leaders and state lawmakers in several states — including California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Maryland and Utah — have weighed gas tax holidays as a way to provide relief at the pump.

Georgia lawmakers have already enacted a temporary suspension, while officials in Florida and Maryland have expressed skepticism, citing budget constraints and questions about how much savings would actually reach consumers.

Gas prices have risen across all of these states, with some of the sharpest increases in the South.

Gas tax holidays, which temporarily suspend or reduce state fuel taxes, gained traction in 2022 when gas prices last topped $4 per gallon. Supporters say they can offer immediate, visible relief by lowering the per-gallon cost of fuel.

But researchers and some economists say the benefits are often limited and uneven. A new analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning tax policy research group, estimates that the recent rise in gas prices is on pace to cost American drivers an additional $9.4 billion per month.

The researchers found that gas tax holidays may provide only minimal relief to those who need it most. For households earning less than $53,000 a year, a federal gas tax holiday would save about $5 per month on average.

Some research suggests that much of the benefit from such policies may not reach consumers at all. When fuel supply is constrained, a significant share of the savings can be absorbed within the oil and gas supply chain rather than passed on at the pump.

State-level examples reflect similar patterns. In Georgia, analysts from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that the state’s newly enacted tax holiday is expected to cost the state about $196 million per month and disproportionately benefit wealthier households: The bottom 60% are expected to receive just 22% of the tax cuts — or roughly $13 per family, according to the ITEP analysis.

Utah lawmakers have spent a year planning for a 15% cut in the state’s gas tax from July through December. But some economists say any savings for consumers might be engulfed by higher prices.

“It’s still unclear the extent people will notice that tax cut,” Phil Dean, chief economist at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah, told the Utah News Dispatch.

There are also fiscal trade-offs. Gas taxes are a key source of revenue for transportation infrastructure, and suspending them — even temporarily — can strain state budgets, particularly in places where revenues have fallen in recent years.

Some experts say more targeted approaches, such as direct income rebates or assistance aimed at lower-income households, may be more effective in offsetting rising fuel costs without reducing transportation funding.

“A tax holiday is, I think, something most economists would be uncomfortable with,” said Durlauf, the University of Chicago economist.

If the consumer demand is still there, gasoline prices might still rise, he said. “It’s not obvious to me that the prices will not just adjust to (gas tax holidays) as well.”

Global tensions

Much of the recent volatility stems from the Trump administration’s war in Iran and uncertainty surrounding the Strait of Hormuz — a critical global oil transit route through which a significant share of the world’s oil supply passes. Iran has effectively restricted access to some vessels in the region, raising fears of supply disruptions that can quickly ripple through global markets.

Even the threat of disruption can send oil prices higher, as traders react to the possibility of reduced supply.

Though the United States produces substantial amounts of oil domestically, it remains part of a global market, meaning international developments still directly affect prices at the pump.

“Americans can’t fence themselves off from the impacts of global changes to supply and demand,” said Patrick De Haan, a petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, a fuel savings and price-tracking company. “Actions have consequences, and consumers are very much feeling that.”

Crude oil remains the single biggest driver of gasoline prices, accounting for about half of the cost of a gallon of regular gas, according to the Energy Information Administration. Refining makes up about 20%, while distribution and marketing account for 11%, and taxes roughly 18%.

Brent crude oil — the international benchmark — has surged in recent weeks, briefly reaching $119 per barrel last week. It settled around $100 per barrel on Monday, and rose again on Tuesday to about $113 per barrel.

Federal forecasts expect prices to remain elevated in the near term before easing later this year.

Seasonal factors are also contributing to the increase. As warmer weather approaches, refineries transition to producing summer-blend gasoline, which is more expensive to manufacture but designed to reduce evaporation and meet environmental standards.

Warmer weather also usually means more drivers will be on the road.

“The oil industry is volatile. It’s a global market, and that’s why we don’t predict what’s going to happen next because it’s impossible to,” said Aixa Diaz, a spokesperson for AAA. “This all coincided at a time when gas would normally be going up anyway for us.”

At its core, gasoline pricing reflects basic supply and demand dynamics. When supply tightens — or is expected to — prices rise. When demand falls, prices tend to drop, sometimes sharply.

“Whenever there’s a perceived shift in either supply or demand, there’s going to be an equal reaction,” De Haan said. “This is just one of the larger reactions, because it’s a larger impact.”

The recent spike has also been fueled by rapidly shifting political signals. President Donald Trump said Monday that the United States is in talks with Iran to resolve the conflict, helping to briefly push oil prices lower after they surged amid Trump’s threats to target Iran’s energy infrastructure. Iran denied there were ongoing talks.

Such volatility, economists say, adds another layer of uncertainty that can weigh on both consumers and the broader economy.

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — U.S. senators showed no movement Wednesday toward a deal to end the shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security, despite the problems it’s causing for the thousands of federal workers set to miss yet another paycheck and travelers waiting hours to get through airport security lines. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said an offer from Democrats, sent over in the morning, was completely unacceptable and that GOP lawmakers wouldn’t even bother to send back a counterproposal. 

“They know better. They’re asking for things that have already been turned down,” he said. “So it just seems like they’re going in circles.”

Thune said the chamber would vote later on a funding bill for DHS that doesn’t include Enforcement and Removal Operations at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the deportation and detention arm of the agency.

“They said over the weekend that they didn’t want to fund ERO. They’ll fund everything else,” he said. “So we’re going to give an opportunity to vote to do that.”

Thune said Republicans’ decision to remove funding for those deportation programs represents a “significant” compromise that shows GOP lawmakers are “coming to the table and trying to get a deal.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the offer Democrats sent over represented “a reasonable, good-faith proposal that contains some of the very same asks Democrats have been talking about now for months.”

Schumer said a proposal Republicans sent earlier this week didn’t include any of the overhauls to immigration enforcement that Democrats have been talking about since January, when federal officers killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. 

“For Republicans to send us a proposal that has no reforms is bad faith as well and will only slow things down,” he said. 

Trump ‘pretty much not happy’ with ‘any deal’

President Donald Trump remains a wild card in the negotiations. His support will be needed for any DHS funding bill to become law, regardless of how much longer it takes lawmakers to reach consensus. 

“Well, I don’t want to comment until I see the deal,” he said Tuesday when asked about ongoing DHS talks. “But as you know, they’re negotiating a deal. I guess they’re getting fairly close. But I think any deal they make, I’m pretty much not happy with it.”

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., when asked about those comments during a Wednesday morning press conference, appeared skeptical of breaking off some line items in the DHS funding bill.

Any legislation to end the shutdown that passes the Senate will need to move through the House before it could reach Trump’s desk. 

“We always have Homeland funded as an entire department. There’s obvious reasons for that. It’s very important. I don’t think we need to be breaking it apart,” he said. “And so I think that’s what the president is reflecting there. He wants Congress to do its dang job.”

Will Congress leave town without an agreement?

It isn’t clear whether the Senate will still depart for its two-week spring break without a bipartisan agreement to fund DHS, which has been shut down since Feb. 14. 

Legislation cannot advance in that chamber without the support of at least 60 senators, making buy-in from each party essential to end the shutdown. 

Thune said he hadn’t made a final decision but seemed likely to let lawmakers head back home for the scheduled recess absent progress toward a deal. 

“If we’re not here, and when the Democrats are willing to make a deal, we’d certainly get everybody back to vote on it,” he said. “But no decisions on that yet. So hopefully the next couple days will be productive.”

Until a deal is reached, the DHS funding lapse will continue to affect workers and programs run by many of the agencies within the department, including the Coast Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Secret Service and Transportation Security Administration.

ICE and Customs and Border Protection operations have largely continued uninterrupted since Republicans approved tens of billions in additional funding for those agencies in their “big, beautiful” law. 

‘We’ve got a lot of plate spinning’

Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford said lawmakers need to find some sort of solution to fund DHS following weeks of stalemate. 

“At the end of the day, we got to get them open,” he said. “And the frustration that we have is we literally offered what they asked for three days ago, and then suddenly it’s like, ‘Oh no, no, we got new stuff.’”

Lankford said he doesn’t want to see senators leave for the recess without a deal to reopen DHS. 

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said lawmakers should stick around Capitol Hill until they solve at least some of the several outstanding issues. 

“We’ve got a lot of plate spinning. And I’m afraid if we leave until we get some certainty around them, a few of them are going to fall to the floor and people are going to be wondering what’s going on,” he said.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said the way the Trump administration has approached immigration enforcement and deportation has led to the problems over DHS funding. 

“I have a constitutional responsibility to fund only a government that obeys the law,” he said. “I would be violating my oath of office to fund ICE without reforms.”

Moreno and Merkley face off

Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno went to the floor in the evening to ask unanimous consent to approve a bill that would fund every component of DHS for two weeks, providing back pay to all of its employees. 

Moreno said that would give senators enough time to work out a bipartisan deal on the full-year DHS spending bill if they canceled the recess and stayed around to work. 

Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley proposed that lawmakers instead fund TSA through the end of September, when the current fiscal year ends. 

Moreno then asked Merkley to change that request to fund every agency within DHS except for Enforcement and Removal Operations for the rest of the fiscal year. 

Merkley then said he would agree to fund every agency within DHS except ICE and CBP.

“He keeps asking for Customs and Border Protection to be funded without modifying how they’re behaving across the nation,” Merkley said. “He keeps asking for ICE to be funded without modifying their actions where they’re acting like a secret police.”

The senators were unable to come to an agreement to approve funding for any of the agencies at DHS for any length of time during a nearly hour-long exchange that became tense at several points. 

Moreno said the impasse represented “a sad day for the United States Senate.” 

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will allow gas stations to sell a blended fuel containing 15% ethanol into the summer season in an effort to lower gas prices, Administrator Lee Zeldin said Wednesday.

The blend, known as E15,  is usually barred in many Midwest states over the summer to reduce smog, though the federal government has routinely in recent years issued waivers to allow summer sales. The move, which ethanol producers applauded, could prevent a spike in prices at the pump during the war with Iran that has scrambled oil markets.

“EPA is working with our federal partners to reduce unnecessary costs and uncertainty and ensure that gas prices remain affordable for all Americans through the summer,” Zeldin said in a statement. “This emergency action will provide American families with relief by increasing fuel supply and consumer choice.”

Bipartisan officials in corn-producing states had sought the waiver, and continue to push for year-round availability of the product. Ethanol is manufactured from corn and other plant materials.

Move wins praise from industry, officials 

Seven Midwestern governors — Republicans Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Mike Kehoe of Missouri, Jim Pillen of Nebraska and Larry Rhoden of South Dakota and Democrats Tim Walz of Minnesota, JB Pritzker of Illinois and Tony Evers of Wisconsin — signed a March 6 letter to Zeldin requesting the waiver.

More recently, the top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee also endorsed the move.

“With gas prices spiking, now’s the time to make E15 available year-round,” Minnesota U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, said in a March 19 statement. “It will help lower costs and decrease our dependence on foreign oil.”

U.S. Rep. Adrian Smith, a Nebraska Republican, also applauded Wednesday’s announcement, and called on Congress to make the policy permanent.

Ethanol industry groups also approved of the waiver. Geoff Cooper, the president and CEO of the national ethanol advocacy group Renewable Fuels Association, said the move was “exactly what the supply chain needs right now.”

“President Trump and Administrator Zeldin understand that year-round E15 is a solution that can extend domestic fuel supplies and reduce pump prices for hardworking American families,” Cooper said. “With geopolitical conflict roiling energy markets worldwide, we applaud President Trump and Administrator Zeldin for acting quickly and decisively to combat potential fuel shortages and help keep a lid on gas prices this summer.”

Iowa Renewable Fuels Association Executive Director Monte Shaw also thanked the administration in a statement.

“With rising fuel prices and a war in the Middle East, this is the worst time to force retailers to bag E15 pumps. E15 adds home-grown supply and reduces prices for consumers,” he said.

Iran war disrupts oil market

Gas prices have risen since President Donald Trump launched strikes against Iran on Feb. 28. Transport through the Strait of Hormuz has been limited due to threats from Iran during the conflict.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt noted at Wednesday’s press briefing the waiver was a part of the administration’s response to rising fuel costs during the war.

“Obviously the administration is coming up with creative new solutions by the day to keep the price of oil stable, something the president wants to see,” she said.

Trump will also welcome nearly 1,000 farmers to the White House for a National Agriculture Day event on Friday, where the president plans to promote his record on the issue, Leavitt said.

The E15 waiver will be in effect May 1 through May 20. Twenty days is the longest period a single waiver can be applied under the Clean Air Act, the EPA said in the press release. The move signals the administration views further waivers as an option as restrictions ramp up over the summer.

Shauneen Miranda contributed to this report. 

State rainy day funds — money reserved to cover unexpected expenses and patch short-term budget holes — are declining nationally as states face increased costs, lower tax revenue and federal budget cuts, a new analysis found. 

The decline follows a period of strong reserves bolstered by federal pandemic aid and higher-than-expected tax collections, the report said.

Researchers at The Pew Charitable Trusts found that the number of days that state reserves could cover state operations fell in fiscal year 2025 — the first decline since the Great Recession. 

State reserve funds will play a critical role in stabilizing state finances as they confront the most widespread budgetary pressures since at least 2020, the researchers said. Like household savings accounts, state reserves help fund major one-time investments or provide a cushion in times of disrupted tax revenues, including economic downturns. Lower reserves means states could be quicker to cut state services or raise taxes in times of tight budgets.

Examining data from a survey conducted by the National Association of State Budget Officers, Pew researchers concluded that the median state in 2025 could fund its operations on reserve funds for 47.8 days — down from a record 54.5 days in fiscal 2024. 

States last fiscal year held a collective $174 billion in savings, though reserves varied widely. Wyoming, for example, held enough cash on hand to operate for 320 days. But New Jersey’s reserve didn’t hold enough to cover a single day of state operations. The other states with the smallest share of rainy day reserves were Washington, Illinois, Delaware and Rhode Island. 

The Pew analysis found that 26 states in 2025 had less capacity in their rainy day funds — meaning they would cover fewer days of state operations. In 14 of those states, officials drew on reserves, while 10 grew their balances but did so more slowly than they increased state spending. Two states maintained flat reserve levels as expenses grew.

While helpful in the short term, reserves won’t provide a long-term solution for states as many are confronting structural imbalances, meaning revenue streams are not keeping up with government spending. 

“Although reserves exist to provide relief during times of fiscal stress, they are not a sustainable solution for persistent budget shortfalls,” the analysis said. 

Budget pressures are expected to increase as states grapple with major federal policy changes that cut state funding and increase state administrative costs for federal safety net programs including Medicaid and food assistance. 

In its most recent survey of state budgets, the National Association of State Budget Officers found that general fund spending was projected to be “nearly flat” in fiscal year 2026 budgets. More states last year began enacting spending cuts and hiring freezes to balance budgets, the survey found, and slow revenue growth was projected for a fourth consecutive year. 

The survey showed 23 states expected spending to stay flat or decline in 2026, while 14 expected spending to grow by less than 5%. Seven states projected growth between 5% and 10%, while five expected spending to grow by more than 10%. 

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

The candidate debate scheduled for Wednesday night between Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates Chris Taylor and Maria Lazar was canceled after Taylor was hospitalized with kidney stones Wednesday morning. 

According to a release from Taylor’s campaign, she woke up “feeling unwell” and went to urgent care where doctors recommended she visit the hospital for further evaluation. In a later release, the campaign said she’d rest a few days before returning to the campaign trail. 

“This afternoon Judge Taylor was diagnosed with kidney stones and will rest and recover for the next couple days before returning to the campaign trail,” the campaign said. “Judge Taylor will soon launch a statewide tour to meet voters across Wisconsin and we are committed to rescheduling today’s debate next week on a date that works for WISN, debate partners, and our opponent’s campaign. We appreciate everyone who has reached out to wish Judge Taylor well and we’re looking forward to a quick recovery.”

Wednesday’s debate, scheduled to be held at 7 p.m. at the Marquette University School of Law, was the only planned debate between the two candidates. A rescheduled debate is set to be held April 2 at 7 p.m. The makeup will be held at WISN’s studio without any audience. 

The race between Taylor and Lazar, both judges on state appeals courts, has drawn less attention than other recent Supreme Court races, with the ideological balance of the Court not at stake. A Marquette Law School poll released on Tuesday found that Taylor holds an 8 percentage point edge among likely voters, yet nearly half of those polled had still not decided whom to support.

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This story has been updated.

Racine County election conspiracy theorist Harry Wait was found guilty of election fraud Tuesday for requesting absentee ballots on behalf of two elected officials in 2022. 

Wait has been a prominent voice in Wisconsin’s community of election deniers since the 2020 presidential election, including as a leader of the group H.O.T. Government. He was convicted of two counts of misdemeanor election fraud and one count of identity theft by a Walworth County jury. 

Wait was charged by Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul in 2022 after he requested absentee ballots using the names of Racine Mayor Cory Mason, a Democrat, and Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a Republican. Wait said at the time he requested the ballots as part of an effort to prove the state’s absentee ballot system is vulnerable to fraud. 

After requesting the ballots, Wait publicized his effort, gaining the attention of Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling. Schmaling and other members of the Wisconsin Republican party celebrated Wait’s work as highlighting a vulnerability in the system. However election administrators said Wait had committed a crime by requesting the ballots and the fact he was caught showed the system was not actually vulnerable. 

Voting by mail has been under attack from Republicans in Wisconsin and across the country since President Donald Trump began to make his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen partially because of absentee ballots. Trump lost the 2020 election in Wisconsin by about 21,000 votes and numerous audits, reviews and investigations have affirmed that result. 

Wait faces up to seven years imprisonment, but his sentencing has not yet been scheduled. After his conviction, he told reporters he “would do it again.”

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A bill that aimed to prevent the use of expensive lawsuits to silence journalists and other members of the public was blocked by the state Senate due to opposition from Sen. Cory Tomczyk (R-Mosinee), who previously imperiled a local Wausau paper. 

Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation — also known as SLAPP lawsuits — are a way of intimidating and quieting critics, including journalists and activists, by burdening them with the cost of expensive, baseless legal proceedings. Anti-SLAPP laws aim to provide a remedy.

Rep. Jim Piwowarczyk (R-Hubertus), who coauthored the bill, said in an email to the Wisconsin Examiner that he was “very disappointed that one or two Republican senators would block a bill that would protect everyone’s First Amendment rights.” He said he identified a few senators opposed to allowing the bill to make it to the Senate floor, and made several attempts to contact them and address potential concerns. 

“The vast majority of Republicans AND Democrats in the state Legislature supported this bill,” Piwowarczyk said. 

Bill cosponsors included Reps. Elijah Behnke (R-Town of Chase), Lindee Brill (R-Sheboygan Falls), Barbara Dittrich (R-Oconomowoc), Randy Udell (D-Fitchburg) and Sylvia Ortiz-Velez (D-Milwaukee).

Piwowarczyk is the co-founder of Wisconsin Right Now, a conservative publication focused on state government issues. He was elected to his first term in the state Assembly in 2024, and the anti-SLAPP legislation became a top priority because he said he has “seen firsthand how ordinary citizens, citizen activists, influencers, concerned parents and small media outlets are systematically targeted with lawsuits by entities with large or unlimited resources in an attempt to silence them.” 

“These lawsuits weren’t about legitimate grievances; they are a form of legal warfare or lawfare. As the saying goes, ‘The punishment is the process,’” Piwowarczyk said. 

The bill passed on a voice vote in the Assembly in February, but never received a vote in the Senate. 

Wisconsin Right Now cofounder with Piwowarczyk, Jessica McBride, recently accused Tomczyk in a Facebook post of maneuvering behind the scenes to block the bill from a vote. 

Tomczyk has some history with the issue, having prompted the introduction of anti-SLAPP legislation by Democratic lawmakers in 2023. He placed the Wausau Pilot & Review, a small digital newspaper started and edited by Shereen Siewert, in a dire financial situation when he sued the paper for defamation in 2021 after the it published a report that Tomczyk called a young teen an anti-LGBTQ slur at a Marathon County board was meeting. The paper reported that Tomczyk was overheard using the slur as a resolution called “A Community for All,” an effort  to reinforce acceptance of diversity and inclusivity, was being debated. 

According to the New York Times, Tomczyk admitted in a deposition to having used the slur before “out of joking and out of spite” about his gay brother.

The case was dismissed in April 2023 after the judge found that Tomczyk had failed to meet the legal standard for defamation. His appeal of the judgement was dismissed in 2024. Tomczyk’s lawsuit prompted Democratic lawmakers to introduce anti-SLAPP legislation in 2023, although it never advanced in the Republican-led Legislature. 

This session, Piwowarczyk introduced his own proposal, the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act, to curb retaliatory lawsuits and gathered bipartisan support for it. 

Piwowarczyk’s bill would have created a process for courts to quickly dismiss lawsuits that target protected speech or participation in government proceedings, including by requiring a prompt hearing and halting constant discovery while the motion is pending. The bill would have also allowed for the parties that prevailed in court to recover attorney fees. The bill was based on model legislation developed by the nonprofit Uniform Law Commission. 

Piwowarczyk has cited other cases he said prompted the bill, including one in which Moms For Liberty activist Scarlett Johnson was sued for defamation for calling a former teacher in the Mequon-Thiensville School District a “bully,” “lunatic,” “woke” and “white savior” on social media. Johnson eventually got representation from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a conservative legal nonprofit, and her case was dismissed. 

Wisconsin Right Now is not the only conservative endorser of the legislation. Meg Ellefson, a conservative podcast host, wrote in a Facebook post that she was “very disappointed” and that Tomczyk has a “shallow and myopic view” of the issue.

“This was an opportunity to protect the free speech of conservatives in Wisconsin and likely won’t come around again due to predictions that Republicans will lose control of the state Senate in this next election,” she wrote. 

A coalition of Wisconsin local media stakeholders including Siewert, Freedom of Information Council president Bill Lueders and Wisconsin Watch managing editor Jim Malewitz, signed a letter urging lawmakers to pass the bill and protect journalists and members of the public earlier this month. 

“Amid the many threats facing our communities, it’s more clear than ever that our right to free speech is under attack,” the letter stated. “We firmly believe that this bill is a strong solution to threats against the First Amendment in Wisconsin. By advancing this piece of legislation, lawmakers would be making a wise nonpartisan investment in protecting the speech and civic health of the commonwealth while laying the groundwork for a sustainable, community-rooted local news ecosystem.” 

Wisconsin is one of 11 states in the U.S. that does not have Anti-SLAPP protections in place.

Tomczyk, however, has rejected the claim that he is the only reason did not advance.

“I have to respond to the ridiculous notion that I have somehow made an assault on free speech in our state,” Tomczyk wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday evening. “Most media is dominated by the left with only 2 or 3 right leaning outlets in the entire state. This bill provides more [protection] for the media and does little or nothing for the ordinary citizen.” 

Tomczyk said the bill was discussed during a Republican Senate caucus meeting where he was the only person to speak on the bill. 

“It is in caucus that the Senators who have proposed bills,,, have the opportunity to support and promote their bill if there is opposition to it.” he wrote on Facebook. “When appropriately numbered Senate Bill 666 came up for discussion, I simply told my colleagues to be very careful and make sure they understand what they are voting for,” Tomczyk said. “I was the only Senator to speak against the bill. No Senator spoke FOR the bill.”

In his post, Tomczyk also, again, denied that he ever said the slur at the meeting, noted that he wasn’t a state lawmaker at the time and questioned the effectiveness of the legislation. 

Language in the bill states that one of three criteria that would be used to determine whether a case can be dismissed through the process is if “the responding party fails to establish a prima facie case as to each element of the cause of action or the moving party establishes either that the responding party failed to state a cause of action or that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”

“You got that?” Tomczyk wrote about the language. “Clear as mud right?” 

Piwowarczyk said, however, that many of his colleagues got on board with the legislation after he explained its purpose and some of the examples. 

Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Gillett) was the lead Senate author. He was not available for an interview with the Examiner, but said in a statement that “we unfortunately didn’t have the votes on Senate Bill 666 in the Senate as we prepared for last week’s floor session.”

The state Senate and Assembly have both adjourned their final regular floor sessions of the year. Work in the Capitol will be minimal for the remainder of the year as lawmakers turn their attention to running for reelection. 

Free Press Action said it would also be advocating for the bill next year.

“SLAPP lawsuits are designed to punish and silence, not to win. Even when dismissed, they can cost defendants tens of thousands of dollars and years in court. When anti-SLAPP laws are enacted, targeted victims can defeat these speech-chilling attacks,” Arin Anderson, the Wisconsin civic media campaign manager for Free Press Action, said in a statement. “Passing this broadly supported bill would send a clear message: Wisconsin stands up for free speech, open debate and the right of people to hold the powerful accountable. 

When lawmakers return in January 2027, the makeup of both the state Assembly and Senate could be quite different, with Republican leaders and other incumbents retiring and Democratic lawmakers eyeing majorities. 

“I look forward to reintroducing the bill next session and working with my colleagues to protect Wisconsin residents from meritless, anti-speech lawsuits,” said Wimberger, who is not up for reelection. 

Piwowarczyk said reintroducing the bill at the start of the next legislative session will be one of his first actions should he be elected to another term in office. 

“This bill is bipartisan, so regardless of what happens in November, I expect to have wide support again,” he said.

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Transportation Security Administration officers are struggling to afford basic necessities as they approach their second missed full paycheck since a funding lapse began last month, union leaders said at a virtual press conference Tuesday.

Officials from the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 44,000 TSA officers nationwide, urged Congress to immediately find a solution to the partial government shutdown that began Feb. 14. More than 400 TSA workers have quit their jobs since the start of the shutdown, with thousands missing shifts.

Mac Johnson, who represents TSA workers in North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, said his members are increasingly telling him about difficulties affording groceries, housing costs, auto insurance and other essentials. 

Some have turned to selling plasma to make ends meet, he said.

“It’s not that these employees, their families, are hungry,” Johnson said. “They’re beginning to starve, literally starve, because they do not have the funds … to provide food for their families … So we not only strongly encourage, we demand that the Congress and this administration sit down like adults and resolve this matter so these employees won’t be placing themselves between a rock and a hard place.”

Dispute over immigration crackdown

After two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis in January — and other chaotic episodes sparked by President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation push — Democrats in Congress demanded changes to immigration enforcement policy as a condition for funding the Department of Homeland Security, which includes TSA and conducts most immigration enforcement. 

Senators have indicated in recent days they could be approaching a deal to fund the non-immigration parts of TSA, but union officials said their members must be paid immediately.

“We’ve been hearing about optimism and progress for weeks,” AFGE President Everett Kelly said. “Our members cannot eat optimism or pay rent with progress.”

As airports see TSA staffing shortages while officers miss work, security lines in some airports have stretched for hours.

Even once the shutdown ends, it could take two weeks to a month for workers to receive their back pay, Aaron Barker, the president of the union covering airports in Georgia, and Johnny Jones, the secretary-treasurer of the nationwide AFGE chapter for TSA workers, said. 

That could potentially mean it will take weeks to return to normal staffing levels as officers continue to miss shifts to seek gig work or other quick payouts, they said.

TSA officers have missed one partial and one full paycheck since mid-February. Another paycheck is due this weekend, the AFGE officials said.

Blame game

Asked about the situation affecting TSA employees, DHS provided a statement from spokeswoman Lauren Bis that closely resembled a comment she gave a day earlier blaming Democrats for the shutdown.

“American travelers are facing HOURS long waits at airports across the country and more than 450 TSA officers quit and thousands have called out sick from work because they are not able to afford gas, childcare, food, or rent,” Bis said.

At the U.S. Capitol, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer blasted Trump for demanding that a national voter ID bill be included in a deal to reopen DHS.

“We wasted a day of negotiations because of Donald Trump’s temper tantrum,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said in a floor speech. “A day may not seem a lot to the president, but that’s another day of TSA workers needlessly waiting for checks, another day of travelers standing for hours at a time at security.”

ICE ‘in the way’

The administration has dispatched agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, another DHS agency, to a handful of airports to assist TSA workers. ICE is fully funded, despite the DHS shutdown, because Republicans’ spending and tax cuts law last year provided money for immigration enforcement.

White House border czar Tom Homan has said ICE agents would help with tasks like guarding exits and not conduct activities that require extensive training, freeing up TSA officers to operate x-ray machines and other more specialized tasks.

But AFGE officials said the ICE officers are not helping.

“All ICE is doing is in the way,” Hydrick Thomas, the president of the AFGE council covering TSA workers, said. “We’re still trying to figure out why they’re there. No way ICE is gonna help us make passengers feel safe.”